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There was recently a thread on Twitter started by Claire Ryan who tweeted:

“When is giving a child an award at school, not an award at all?” – along with this excerpt about an autistic boy called Jack.

Jack reported being anxious recently in assembly as school were giving out awards. He would sit thinking ‘don’t pick me’. When he was picked he was very anxious and worried about which way to walk to the front of the hall with all people watching him. Jack was able to describe how this made him feel saying “my bones were dust..my brain was mush..if I could curl up into a ball and fall into a hole 50 feet deep”

A thought provoking tweet which stirred up memories of sitting in the school hall DREADING being given an award because of having to walk up to the front to receive it. You could bet your dinner money that somebody would stick their foot out on route to ramp up the humiliation factor and when you crave invisibility this is the LAST thing that you want.

My infants school had a ‘star’ system where children were awarded gold and silver stars for good work/behaviour. We also had black stars, which are sort of self-explanatory. Nobody wanted one of those. I liked the gold and silver stars because they were aesthetically pleasing. I like shiny stuff. What can I say? Maybe I was a cat in a past life. However, I did NOT like going up to the front of the class to receive one because it meant that everybody would look at me so I deliberately underachieved in my favourite subjects in order to avoid it..

For example, I purposely made myself read slower in order to avoid going to the teacher to get a new book. It seemed like I was below average but in actual fact I was an early self-taught reader who could easily read an entire book in a couple of hours at home. I was also reading books way beyond my age group but as far as the school was concerned, I was slow.

Despite my avoidance strategies, I would sometimes forget myself like when I ran a 100 meter sprint in the school sports. I didn’t realise how fast I could run and to everybody’s surprise, including my own, I won the race.

So, there I was, face down on the grass (dying) when I got an overpowering whiff of Paco Rabanne. This could only mean that my class teacher (and head of sports) was close by and sure enough he was standing over me with his mirrored sunglasses on looking like something out of Top Gun.

Actually, this anecdote story predates Top Gun but you get my drift?

He grinned at me.

Temporarily blinded by the glare off his whitened teeth, I gasped ‘Alright Sir?’

‘Well done young lady!’ *pats me on the back but I’m highly-sensitive so it feels more like a thump*

Then came the kick in the metaphorical flaps.

You’re in the athletics team and practice starts Thursday after school.

Shit. Shit. SHIT!!

Didn’t say shit, obvs.

Instead of feeling euphoric as I imagine most other children would – I felt sick to my stomach.

I didn’t want to be in the school team.

I didn’t even like sports except for watching football and Wimbledon. Plus, I did enough nervous sweating at school without having to work one up in my own time. The problem was that I couldn’t verbalise my feelings. I didn’t understand that I could have said no so I found myself turning up for athletics practice and the next thing I knew I was on a noisy coach bound for the local athletics stadium. Can you imagine how sensory that was? I was that anxious, I forgot how to hand the baton over for the relay race. That occasion was for town. Next came running for my county – by which time I was totally stressed out and visibly so. My mum asked me why I was doing it if it made me so unhappy? So I simply stopped turning up. Needless to say, Sir wasn’t pleased.

I don’t hold a grudge. How can I? He had no idea what was going on inside my body and mind as I wasn’t able to verbalise any of it. I suppose from his point of view it just looked like I was messing him about? He misunderstood me but then being misunderstood has been the story of my life.

Then there was the time when I got 98% in my history mock exam..

Teacher read out our scores. She read everyone’s name out except mine. That’s when I started to feel sick because I figured that I had either done exceptionally shit or exceptionally well.

Either way, it wasn’t good.

She read my name (and score) out and looked pleased for me. What she didn’t understand was that it reminded the class dickheads that I was there and that it had been a few minutes since they’d thrown something at my head. Needless to say, any sense of pride was obliterated by the feeling of wanting to die.

That 50ft hole that Jack described? I know it well.

I underachieved on purpose and the main reason was that achievement equaled anxiety.

The majority of replies that came from #ActuallyAutistic people (including myself) were that receiving awards causes distress and anxiety.

This isn’t to say that autistic people don’t want awards. Most people appreciate recognition when they have worked hard on something. It’s the social aspect of it that is the problem. For me, opening my book and seeing a gold star would have made me happy. It would have been enough. Having to face the entire class took the pleasure away and turned it into something very unpleasant. Just as being picked for the athletics team took away my pleasure of winning. For a child to purposely underachieve has a detrimental effect on their present and their future. No doubt Jack’s teacher meant well but despite their good intentions, the child was distressed.

It’s impossible to get things right every time but when teachers get it wrong they really need to learn from it.

The Boy likes to get rewards at school but he doesn’t like going into assembly to receive them. On a VERY good day he will go and get his award but will have to leave immediately. It’s all about gauging how anxious he is and if he is up for it or not on that particular day.

The thing with autism is that normal rules don’t apply.

Each child is different with individual needs.

Some autistic children are unable to verbalise their feelings.

An autistic child might be able do something one day but will struggle with same task the next.

To clarify. Autistic children like to feel a sense of achievement but how the recognition of that achievement is undertaken must be carefully thought out or irreparable damage could be done.

A lot has changed in the last 38 years since the start of that decade. Technology has gone STRATOSPHERIC and I have no idea what’s happening anymore..

So, how about a few comparisons between then and now?

TV

Now. There are about, ooh, a million TV channels to choose from? Yet you can still spend half an hour flicking through to find there is NOTHING on. I literally spent AGES flicking through all the channels last night and I ended up watching Fawlty Towers which was made sometime during the middle-ages. ‘Flowery Twats’ may be un-pc these days but it’s still hilariously funny.

Basil to his car: Start, you vicious bastard. Oh my God. I’m warning you, if you don’t start… I’ll count to three. 1, 2, 3, right, that does it. I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing.

They really don’t make them as good as this anymore..

Then. We had THREE channels at the start of the 80s. BBC One. BBC Two and ITV. Channel Four was launched in 1982 so that made a grand total of FOUR channels to choose from. Channel Four was a God send for us teenagers with programmes like The Tube and Brookside. I mean, who can forget ‘Debbie and Damon’? De Romeo and Juliet of der Pewl, eh?

‘Come here boy! It’s been five minutes since I gave somebody a damn good thrashing!’

DISCIPLINE

NOW.“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it, Sir. I’ll have you arrested, Sir. You’ll be somebody’s bitch in prison, Sir!”

Discipline in secondary school consists of after-school detentions, confiscations, isolation and exclusion. When it became illegal to thrash kids, teachers had to get creative – not to mention medicated. However, it’s my understanding that teachers still have the right to use necessary force pupils in certain situations like if they are going to harm themselves or others?

THEN. In my day you got thrashed with a big fuck off stick and I’ve seen numerous blackboard rubbers hurtling across classrooms aimed at somebody’s head. It’s a wonder there weren’t fatalities. Maybe there were? Come to think of it, pupils were prone to disappearing from time to time. Was it truancy? Or were they concussed in A & E?

The glory years of corporal punishment came to an end in 1987 (two years after I left) though private schools carried on thrashing until 1999. In this instance, I think that 2018 wins because there should never have been a place in society for hitting children.

NUCLEAR WAR

NOW. There’s probably have a game about it on X Box featuring zombies. Also, President Trump likes to have ‘my nukes are bigger than yours’ competitions with anybody who takes the piss out of his hair/face/tan/hands/leadership.

I’d say this gives some cause for concern..

THEN. In 1983 there were two close calls. ACTUAL danger of ANNIHILATION due to a tiff between the Russia and America. A generation of kids and their parents properly shat themselves worrying over this. Parents were stock piling tins of beans so in the event of nuclear war we could fart ourselves into comas. Thankfully it didn’t happen but it gave Frankie Goes To Hollywood some inspiration for their number one hit, Two Tribes.

Remember this?

“The air attack warning sounds likeThis is the sound.

When you hear the air attack warningYou and your family must take cover.”

Magzilla19 September 1983

PSYCHOTIC FEMALE PRIME MINISTERS

NOW. People think Theresa May is bad?

THEN. She’s aint a patch on our pearl wearing overlord!

Margaret Thatcher (or “that woman” as my Labourite father called her) ruled as PM throughout the entirety of the 80s. This was the woman who a few years earlier (as Secretary of State for Education) abolished free milk for schoolchildren. Also, she and her popular (not) Poll Tax was responsible for the worst riots in Britain. Thatcher was possibly one of the most hated women ever. Certainly wasn’t popular in our house. In my opinion, Thatcher makes Theresa May look like Jar Jar Binks – only in leopard print kitten heels.

LEGO

NOW. Parents have to take out a second mortgage so their kid can have the Star Wars Millennium Falcon? I am STAGGERED at the price of Lego these days! I want to buy a kit, not the company!

THEN. One board, some bricks and you considered yourself lucky.

PHONES

Now. I’ve yet to clap eyes on a young person who isn’t attached to their mobile phone via an umbilical cord. You see them slumped over their phones in McDonald’s – Diet Coke in one hand – mobile phone in the other.

ALL of them on their phones.

NOBODY speaking.

Are they all sat texting each other?

It’s possible.

Then. While mobile phones existed in the 80s – they were the size of a shopping trolley and cost a fortune so us peasants had to make do with landline phones or public phone-boxes. You know, the red ones that reeked of fags and wee?

‘Blocking’ was when irate parents fixed an actual lock on the phone after receiving a bill of EPIC proportions – £40 in 80s money and about £160 in today’s. This usually included a few months of being grounded. Early parole was usually granted because parents couldn’t cope with having stroppy teenagers under their feet being all hormonal and horrible.

Then. Sexuality has played a part in music for decades. Elvis was thrusting his pelvis at teenage girls in the 50s and in those days it was shocking. In 1978 Olivia Newton John was prim and proper as Sandy in Grease – three years later she was wanting to get ‘physical’ with blokes in a gym and I don’t think she meant half an hour on the treadmill! NOT that I knew what it was really about then because I used to pull on my legwarmers and go round the house singing..

You gotta know that you’re bringin’ out The animal in me, Lets get physical, physical, I wanna get physicaaaaaal…

Highly appropriate when you’re eleven years old, no?

THE SELFIE

Now. According to University of Florida’s Eunice Kim and colleagues in a September 2016 paper, there are 93 million selfie postings every day! That’s a LOT of duckface!

Then. Selfies aren’t a new creation, I mean, what’s the difference between a self-portrait and a selfie? It’s still a picture of YOURSELF, right? People have been using cameras to take picture of themselves for decades, it’s just that it’s so much easier now. In my day if you wanted to take a picture of yourself it involved much faffing and possible blindness when the flash went off in your face. Plus we were working with actual film so posing your way through a gazillion shots was NOT an option.

The 80s were my teenage years and I am part of the generation before technology went supersonic. Sadly, teens won’t ever experience that kind of simplicity again unless it’s part of some historical experiment to show how we used to live..

Fast forward 38 years and we live in a technological world where we communicate more with strangers than we do our own families. For autistic people like me, social media helps us to socialise because we are generally crap at it in person. That said, social media is good in small doses because it can easily become overwhelming. Life is too technological for our brains to cope with and as a result our mental health suffers and we have to take social media and, in my case – technology in general – breaks.

I have mixed emotions about the 1980s. Happy because it was the decade where I became a mother. Sad/angry/scarred because I was bullied by twats. Despite this – the frankly criminal fashions and Agagdoo do do push pineapple shake the tree – the 1980s was simplistic in comparison to today.

For me, THE best decade was the one that preceded it. Yes readers, hold onto your goddamn flares because next time I’ll be hauling you back to the 70s!